LYSETTE COHEN - EMPTY SPACES

Lysette Cohen is a writer and musician from Phoenix, Arizona.  She enjoys traveling the world in search of adventure. She has been published in Page & Spine, The Penman Review and Blue Guitar Literary and Arts Magazine.

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​EMPTY SPACES

             Heat closed around me, dense and moist.  Electricity sparked through the air as clouds raced across the sky to smother the afternoon sun.  Sharp winds bent tree branches above me as the air around me the air shuddered.  When it hit, the storm was going to be intense.
            I ignored all of this as I stared down where the marble inscription should have been.  In my mind’s eye, I could read the inscription— but instead of etched marble, dry grass crinkled under the toe of my shoe.  I knelt and ran my hand over the grass, watching the blades bend and break beneath my fingers.  I felt the heat of the earth beneath me as a shock of lightening glowed in the darkening sky.
                                                            *
            There was lightning the last time I took my brother to rehab.  For the first couple times, the facilities had been resort-like.  In-house patients spent six weeks in 1000 thread count luxury, daily maid service, and the best therapists and doctors in the country.  The last time was a state run facility as required by the judge in lieu of prison time.  
            My car bounced over the cracked asphalt as I turned into a parking space in front of the facility and parked.
            “We’re here.”
            It was a stupid thing for me to point out, but I didn’t know what else to say.
            “Why can’t I go back to the one in Wickenburg?”
            Those were the only words he had said since getting in the car.
            My eyes traced the peeling bark on the tree in front of us.  “The judge sentenced you here.  He’s afraid that you’re a flight risk.  Last time you—”
            My voiced died away at the anger burning in his eyes when he finally looked at me.
            “This is your fault.  You did this.  You don’t want to pay for me to get better, so you decided to send me here.”
            The word “here” was spat out with such hatred and I half expected spittle to spray from between his lips.
            “That’s not true.  Three times I sent you to the best treatment centers and paid for everything since the places you chose did not accept insurance.  Three times—”
             A nagging worried at the back of my mind— was he right?  When the judge had sentenced him to the state run facility for inpatient treatment, hadn’t I felt a modicum of relief that I wouldn’t have to pay another fifty thousand for his recovery?
          “Why do you care what the cost is?  You can afford it.  It’s your fault that I’m sick.  You owe me.”
          It was an argument that I’d heard countless times since our childhood.  He had always believed that our mother loved me more and our father had abandoned him.  He was half right—our father had abandoned the both of us—first for for alcohol, then for religion.  It was the greatest gift he could have given the two of us.  Unfortunately, my brother didn’t share my gratitude and had followed in his addictive footsteps.
I knew that we would only end up in a fight if I responded to his accusation, so I said,  “It’s only for six weeks and then you will get to go home.  I’ll come visit you as soon as they will let me.  I’ll bring pictures of Oni for—”
I flinched as he jerked the door open and slammed out of the car.
“Fuck you.”
His words were a whiplash across the face.
They were also the last words he ever said to me.
                                                            *
There was lightning the night we found his body.
            I had just walked through my front door after a twelve-hour workday and dropped everything in the entryway when my mom called.  She was worried since she hadn’t heard from my brother in a couple of days.  That wasn’t an uncommon occurrence since my brother preferred to spend his days in an alcohol and drug induced stupor that had only worsened after his court appointed rehab.
Exhaustion was put on hold.  It was after ten, but the temperature was still over 100 degrees with enough humidity to make you feel as if you were locked in a perpetual sauna.  I met my mother at his apartment.  Our persistent knocking was greeted by the barking of his dog.  We called for him through the door, but the only reply was the wax and wane of barking as if Oni was running from the back of the apartment, to the front door, and back again.
            Soon after a call to the police was made.
            My mother knew.  I guess I did too, but I wasn’t ready to admit it yet.  I didn’t want to admit it—I didn’t want his last words to me to be his last words.
            We waited.  Not in silence.  We made plans— the “what if” plans that you don’t think you will actually need, but you make anyway so you will feel better when everything turns out fine.
            Soon we were driven to our feet by the revolving lights of red and blue and a blaring siren cut through the darkness.  The police officer was familiar with my brother and was irritated to respond to yet another incident involving him.  I understood his frustration.  It was my frustration, too– though I had been responding to calls for far longer.
             After the police officer came the fire department and paramedics, with more lights, more sirens.  A couple of the uniforms scaled the balcony from the stairs.  Within moments, the arcadia door had been removed and the firemen were inside.
           My mom and I watched the jumble of activity from the parking lot below.  They sent the female firefighter to talk to us.  She was young, pretty.  I kept thinking that she was too fragile for such a tough job.  Ridiculous, I know, but stereotypes and all that.
             Seeing her walk towards us, I already knew.  Why would they send the female firefighter if he was alive?
            She never actually said the word “dead”.  As many times as I have thought about that night, I keep coming back to her words— her carefully chosen words.  Words meant to calm, to comfort.  Words she had been trained to say.  If only she knew that there were no words to calm and comfort.
            “He’s in there.  We called it in and the detective and coroner are on their way.  I’m so sorry.”
           I really hate those words.
“I’m so sorry.”
           It’s what you say to people when you know their world is falling apart and you have nothing else to say.  They’ve done nothing wrong, yet they insist on apologizing.  I do it, too.  I’m just as guilty, but I really hate those three words.
“I’m so sorry.”
         As I heard those words, I didn’t feel peace.  I didn’t feel comfort.  I didn’t even feel anger.  I felt nothing.  Aren’t normal people supposed to cry when they find out their brother is dead?  Instead I was filled with hollowness.  Numbness.  Emptiness.
Arrangements needed to be made.  People needed to be called.
          They brought my brother’s dog out on a leash and handed her over to us.  Oni pulled at the leash, so I left my mom with the paramedic to walk with her.
        I heard some of the other paramedics talking to the police.  “Looks like a grand mal seizure.  With the heat . . . could have been anytime . . . 36-72 hours . . . advanced decomp.  Dog ran out of food . . . got hungry . . .”
            They stopped talking when the saw me.
“ . . . Dog ran out of food . . . got hungry . . .”
“ . . . Dog ran out of food . . . got hungry . . .”
         The words raced through my mind, spinning until a visual began to take shape.
             I felt sick.  I wanted to close my eyes and shut their words out, but I couldn’t.  I looked over at my mom.  The paramedic was gone and she was sitting on the curb with my uncle, staring off at nothing.  I don’t think she heard.
           Another woman is asking my uncle questions.  My uncle?  I couldn’t remember when he had gotten there?  I looked down at my phone and realized that I must have called him sometime before.  I checked the time.  It was after 1:00 in the morning.
           I started at the voice beside me.  A woman with a badge and notebook was asking me questions.  Or at least I thought she was talking to me until my uncle answered.
             “I’m not sure how long his drinking has been going on.”
             There was a note of defiance in my uncle’s tone when he spoke that sparked something inside of me.
              “How long has he been taking drugs?”
              “Not long.  Not sure.”
              Anger simmered.  How can he deny knowing about my brother’s addiction?            “High school.”  The words came from me.  I don’t really remember making the conscious decision to open my mouth and speak, but all of a sudden it all came pouring out.  “He started experimenting in high school.  It was beer and weed then, then vodka and pills.  He gets the pills from the hospital for his pancreatitis.  Or at least that was the last diagnosis.”
          Commotion up the stairs drew my attention.  My response died away as a gurney was wheeled into view.  Opaque plastic sheeting covered what I knew were my brother’s remains.  I stared hard at the plastic, trying to discern a shape beneath.  It seemed deflated.  Concave where there should be shape
“ . . . Dog ran out of food . . . got hungry . . .”
          The paramedic’s words rang through my ears as I watched two men lift and carry the gurney down the stairs.  Their movements were fluid and seamless as the load him into the van.
“ . . . Dog ran out of food . . . got hungry . . .”                      
            An image shimmered into focused and superimposed itself in my thoughts.  I gasped for breath as the world began to spin in time with my lurching stomach.  The night began to close around me as tears streaked down my face.  I don’t remember making the conscious decision to cry.
            I collapsed on the grass, uncaring of the people that swarmed around me.  I could hear the urgency and worry in their voices, but it didn’t matter.  Someone picked up my wrist to check my pulse and push a water bottle in my hand.
          “Leave me alone!” I wanted to scream.  “Don’t touch me.  Don’t touch me.  DON’T TOUCH ME!”
            But no words emerged.  Instead, my eyes were glued to the flashing light of the coroner’s van as it slowly pulled away from the curb.  My gaze followed the coroner’s van as it turned onto the street and was swallowed into the darkness beyond the faint reach of the streetlights.  There was finality to the subtle roar of the engine that faded into the night.
It was over.
             In that moment, I realized that I had been expecting that final flash of lights and roar of engine of the coroner’s van for almost fifteen years.   I held my breath waiting for more tears.  More pain.  More . . . something.
               Instead there was nothing, just a vacuum of emotion and feeling, leaving me empty and tired.
             A soft brushing of fur had me looking down.  Oni looked back at me in mutual understanding before dropping her head into my lap.